Gabions are temporary or semi-permanent fortification structures which are used to protect military or civilian installations from weapons assault or from elemental forces, such as flood waters, lava flows, avalanches, slope erosion, soil instability and the like.
WO-A-90/12160 discloses wire mesh cage structures useful as gabions. The cage structure is made up of pivotally interconnected open mesh work frames which are connected together under factory conditions so that the cage can fold concertina-wise to take a flattened form for transportation to site, where it can be erected to take an open multi-compartmental form for filling with a suitable fill material such as sand, soil, earth or rocks.
WO-A-00/40810 also concerns a multi-compartmental gabion which folds concertina-wise for transportation, and which comprises side walls for transportation, and comprises side walls extending along the length of the multi-compartmental gabion. The side walls being connected at spaced intervals along the length of the gabion by partition walls which are formed from two releasable connected sections, which after use of the gabion can be released, the gabion unzipped for recovery purposes.
Existing gabions have certain disadvantages with respect to recoverability. For example, recovery of such gabions can be time consuming, difficult, dangerous, impractical, and damaging to the gabion material, preventing or comprising its reuse, or a combination of any two or more of these. There is a further disadvantage with respect to gabion size. For example, the cavity size within the gabion cannot be adjusted at the site of construction. Although in practice a limited range of standardised cavity sizes meets most requirements, it is still sometimes necessary to custom size for special applications.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved recoverable gabion. There is a need for an improved multi-compartmental, recoverable gabion having adjustable cavity sizes.